


There's Room Enough for Two

by unwillingadventurer



Category: Raffles - E. W. Hornung
Genre: M/M, rafflesweek
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-12
Updated: 2019-03-12
Packaged: 2019-11-16 05:10:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18088043
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unwillingadventurer/pseuds/unwillingadventurer
Summary: Bunny and Raffles look at the stars.





	There's Room Enough for Two

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Raffles Week day 4- worrying about each other (loosely based on the prompt)

At midnight when the stars twinkled above, I sat in solitude upon the roof of our building where far below, the people slept, caught in dreams, resting for the new day ahead. It was a mild night and only a tiny gentle breeze tickled my cheeks as I stared up in silent contemplation. I had left Raffles asleep but I was far too alert to close my eyes- my busy mind racing with a million thoughts about how the last years had cast the biggest shadow over my existence. I saw no light at all some of those days, the darkness consumed me on many more, and during my incarceration, I felt I would never see the stars again.

But here I was; alive, free from shackles, sitting on the roof, Raffles playing the invalid below, and I playing his nurse, like two actors on the stage- fooling the world as we always had, wearing masks to conceal our faces. My once innocent face painted with a prisoner’s palette, Raffles’ face lined with age, his hair awash with a silver not dissimilar to the moon above me. 

My new life had begun. It was far from perfect but it was better than the alternative. But out there it it was tough for me, I’d been witness to it already with whispering voices and pointing fingers. But up on the roof at least the only thing looking down on me were the stars.

“There you are, old chap,” a gruff voice said, followed by a cough. 

I turned to where a white figure, like a ghost, stood in silk pyjamas. It was my Raffles, not a spectre, and as his face came closer to my light, his grey- blue eyes were sparkling and in them I saw the youth and mischief that his other features could not express.

“I couldn’t sleep, A.J, I needed some air,” I told him.

“I guessed that when I saw your empty cot.”

He sat down beside me and I laughed at how he’d neglected to place slippers over his pale bare feet.

“You’ll catch your death.”

“I’ve caught that many times, my dear Bunny, but despite having to play invalid night and day, at this very moment I’ve never felt quite so alive.” His eyes found mine and my heart quickened. “Bunny, I’m…well you know that I’m…don’t you?” He looked down then and I knew what he wanted to say, what he wanted to apologise for. I could see the guilt in his formerly mischievous eyes.

“Let’s not talk of that now, A.J. For tonight I am free from it. It’s just we and the stars.”

“And they are indeed beautiful tonight, my dear Rabbit. I feel I could reach up and take them.”

“If you stole all the stars from the sky, there’d be nothing but blackness.”

He laughed. “A sombre thought. Ah, but I’d put them straight back or just take one, to see what it felt like to hold the beauty of the heavens in my palm. Even just one star has seen the evolution of man, all we have achieved as well as all the depravity. It ceases to exist by day and comes out at night, rather like us in this moment. My dearest Bunny, to hold it, that would be worth more to me than the Koh-I- Noor!”

I turned my face away, not wishing him to see the tear in my eye. Oh, how I’d missed this passionate Raffles, the man who became excited over a diamond and the way it caught the light. I could write a million verses on his very passion alone. He was inspired by beautiful things and I was inspired by him.

Silence consumed us for a good while then and we took each other’s hands and let our fingers intertwine.

“It’s a good job Theobald can’t see us right now,” he said, his lips curling into a smile. “A tiny part of me wishes he could, just to see the old fool’s expression.”

“I don’t! How would it look for me?”

“A seducer of the sick and lame, no, not quite the image for my brave Bunny.”

“Raffles don’t jest. What an awful thought! People already don’t think too highly of me at the moment.”

“Well it’s a good thing that I do then isn’t it? And as you know, my opinion is the only one that matters.”

We both laughed but I couldn’t hide the anxiety deep within me. My shoulders felt tight, my body fidgety, unable to settle.

“What worries you, Bunny?”

“How do you know I’m worried?”

“I know you well enough, intimately in fact.”

“I’m alright, it’s simply that room downstairs, I needed to get out in the open. It felt so…”

“Confining? I understand.”

How could he understand? Yes, he’d been pretending to be an invalid but he hadn’t been through what I’d been through, he’d never understand. But there he was, looking at me with so much compassion in his eyes, so much admiration- it felt he understood.

“You’re not there, Bunny, you’re here with me.”

His hand found mine again and for a brief moment I felt my cares ebb away into the night. I looked at Raffles and smiled at his bare feet. “You must be freezing. You’ll turn blue if you’re not careful, especially those feet.”

“In Italy my feet felt freedom but I’ll recount that story another time.”

“Italy is not England, you’ll freeze!”

“Then you must warm me up, Bunny. How about we go back to bed? There’s still many hours before old Theobald puts in an appearance.”

I agreed and looked one last time at the dark sky before following Raffles inside. The room of ‘Mr. Maturin’ smelt of ointment, tobacco and stale sweat, yet it was practically fragrant compared to what my nostrils had endured prior to this position. As I headed back to my bed, Raffles grabbed my arm.

“Where are you going?” he asked.

There was longing in his expression and without speaking he led me to his bed in the corner, lifting the blanket and climbing inside, pulling me with him. “There’s room for two.”

I snuggled up close to him and he placed his arms around me. He felt so cold, colder than he’d ever been before- he used to be so warm. And his ribs, I could feel them beneath his pyjamas- his once athletic figure now so skinny. He was frail and vulnerable in physicality but at least there was vitality in his heart and I hoped there always would be. We snuggled together, warming one another, his arms holding me in a tight embrace with such love. 

“A perfect little bunny warren wouldn’t you say, my Rabbit?”

It was and there we would stay until the dawn broke.


End file.
